Ok, here goes my first book review.
To begin with, I’ll start off with a star system. 5 stars – the book was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. One star – don’t pick it up to save your life.
This book received three and a half stars from me.
In The Woods is a murder mystery, but what a murder mystery. The first thing I thought upon reading the first page was – “Wow. This woman knows how to write!” The prose was lush and deep, not unlike the proverbial forest from which much of the book takes place. This writer is what I like to call a “wine-writer” – reading their writing is like drinking a glass of very good, well-aged wine. In my experience, most murder novels are terse and closely written – not this one. And for me, that’s a good thing. French’s writing added a whole new layer of yummy goodness to the suspense.
The story opens in Ireland, with the disappearance of three local children in the sprawling wood outside the village of Knocknaree. A massive search takes place in the wood, and unfortunately, only one of the children is found. This child is Adam Ryan – a child found with someone’s blood in his tennis shoes, and absolutely no memory of what happened to him and his friends. The mystery only deepens as the months pass, and no bodies or suspects are forthcoming.
Several years later – Adam is now a grown man, working as a detective on the Irish Murder Squad. He’s rebuilt his life since that fateful day decades ago, and no one but his best friend and partner Cassie knows of his mysterious past. However, the memories threaten to resurface as he and Cassie are chosen to investigate the murder of a girl in Knocknaree Wood – a case that may be connected to the disappearance of Adam’s childhood friends.
I gave this novel three and a half stars because it began with such promise and ended with what I can only describe as a solid thunk. The real spark of the story lay in the relationship between Adam and Cassie – one of those friendships that toes the line between platonic and romantic. The rapport between these two is something that struck close to my heart – I’ve had friendships that were much like the friendship between Adam and Cassie, and some friendships that very closely followed the road that these two end up taking.
After that, the murder mystery fell apart and the perpetrator(s) was so ridiculous and pathetic that I literally put the book down for a moment and asked myself, “Surely this is not the person who murdered that girl? Surely the author isn’t going to go in this direction?”
But alas, she did.
The last 1/4 of the book was pretty bad, in my opinion. The suspense dissipated, and the entire time, I kept hoping for that connection between the old disappearances and the new murder. That spark that fueled the beginning of the book never flared into being again, and I was left extremely dissatisfied and not a little depressed about the ending.
I’m a realistic person. I don’t always believe in happy endings. But this ending was beyond bleak. It was so bleak that it seemed like a plot device for the author, a way to say, “Hey look at me, being all unconventional and leaving the story right here, as it is, without trying to tie up the loose ends.”
That’s sloppy, in my opinion, and keeps a novel from garnering my full appreciation. Nonetheless, this was a solid first work by Tana French, and, judging from the sheer force of her prose alone, if she can just tie up a solid plot, she’ll be blowing up bookstores like no other. I hear her second novel, a follow-up from the perspective of Adam’s friend Cassie titled The Likeness, is much improved. Since I did enjoy this book to a certain degree, I’ll probably pick up the sequel in the coming weeks.
Anyway, thus ends my first review. Please leave some comments if you read the book and agree/disagree!
Posted by des 
